This is a very good movie about a man who thinks the world has no place for him any longer. Al Pacino is a retired Lt Col who was blinded by an accident with a grenade. He decides to spend one last weekend of pleasures and then blow his brains out. To do this, he takes advantage of a prep school student who's been hired to watch him over Thanksgiving break. The student, Chris O'Donnell (the 'O' stands for "Ohmigod, I'm out of my league"), spends the first half of the movie being cowed by any and every person that he speaks to. And he also has a problem at school. He doesn't know if he should tell the headmaster which students pulled a prank on his new Jaguar.
The blend of world weariness and youthful idealism blend well as both of them help each other out. Pacino's acting is very good and he won an Oscar because of it. The tango scene is a masterpiece and he sells being blind very well. O'Donnell fills space and probably says all of the correct lines at the right times.
The thing that most caught my attention was Pacino's speech at the big disciplinary meeting. The headmaster is suggesting that an attack on his car, a gift from the trustees, is an attack on the school as an institution. Pacino counters by suggesting that at least he isn't a snitch. This may have been a good argument on the playground at the age of 8, but it falls a bit flat here. This goes a bit above to tattle or not to tattle. Defacing a Jag is probably a felony level offense.
One other note, the box for the movie seems to think that Pacino won the Best Actor award for 1993. This scared me into thinking that I'd misread the year it came out, but the Oscar site says 1992 so I'm going with that.
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